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Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics investigate the body‘s reactions to poems: The degree of being moved is particularly high in passages containing direct speech and at closing positions
Frankfurt, 23 May 2017 – 225 years ago, Friedrich Schiller described the phenomenon of being moved by an artwork as a seemingly paradoxical mixture of „suffering and pleasure“. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt now present physiological evidence for this description.
In a large-scale physiological study, the authors examined the physiological, neural, and behavioral responses to moving poetry. Additionally, in order to identify particularly intense moments of being moved, they made use of the so-called goosecam, which detects the occurrence of goosebumps, also referred to as chills. The authors report that moments of chills are accompanied by facial expressions that indicate negative emotions. At the same time, however, they found that the very same moments induce a heightened activity in the brain’s reward system.
“We expect that the results of our study will stimulate a debate on the usage of poetry in high schools, its role in our everyday life, and its unrecognized potential,“ states the principal investigator Eugen Wassiliwizky.
The distribution of chills over poems gives insight into the mechanisms of poetic language. Specifically, the authors report that moments of chills tend to cluster in passages of social address such as direct speech. Moreover, these moments accumulate at the closing positions of lines, stanzas, and entire poems.
The reasons for the latter finding are to be found in the principles of poetic language: Both rhyme and poetic meter give rise to strong expectations on the part of the perceiver. The brain’s predictive coding system checks continuously whether the upcoming syllables comply with or diverge from the pattern established by the poem itself. The resulting expectations are particularly strong at the end of lines or stanzas due to the short pause before the next begins. They are further amplified by the rhyme scheme.
The choreography of the story also adds to the expectation of a final solution towards the end of a poem. Evidently, poets are well aware of the underlying mechanisms of poetic language which can give us chills and send shivers down the spine.
Original publication (open access):
Wassiliwizky, E., Koelsch, S., Wagner, V., Jacobsen, T., & Menninghaus, W. (2017). The emotional power of poetry: neural circuitry, psychophysiology, compositional principles. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience. doi 10.1093/scan/nsx069
The Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt/Main, Germany
The Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics has been founded in 2013 in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. It currently employs more than 130 staff members. In a joint effort of researchers from the humanities and the sciences, the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics explores who aesthetically appreciates what, for which reasons and under which situational and historical circumstances, and analyzes the functions of aesthetic practices and preferences for individuals and societies.
The Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics is one of 83 institutes of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e.V., one of Europe’s leading research organizations. For more information go to https://www.mpg.de/en
Contact Public Relations:
presse@ae.mpg.de
Dr. Anna Husemann, Phone: +49 69 8300 479 650
Ina Wittmann, Phone: +49 69 8300 479 651
Andrea Treber, Phone: +49 69 8300 479 652
Contact Publication:
Eugen Wassiliwizky
Phone: +49 69 8300 479 114
eugen.wassiliwizky@ae.mpg.de
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